


West Coast

by maggsam, readymachine



Series: Vacation Town [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, BAMF Lydia, BAMF Stiles, Desert, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Oni, Post-Apocalypse, Smut and P I N I N G, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 06:26:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12293229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggsam/pseuds/maggsam, https://archiveofourown.org/users/readymachine/pseuds/readymachine
Summary: “Don’t follow me,” She tells him, eyes still trained on the darkness of the diner.He huffs indignantly, and it sounds much closer than she expected it to. She whirls around and her gaze hits his heaving chest, every inhale just barely grazing her shoulder. She slowly drags them up to glare at him, but he’s already glaring down at her.He just witnessed her take out a Ghost Rider. He’s either got a death wish, is just plain stupid, or he’s a ballsy little shit.





	West Coast

It starts with bleeding from the ears.

Lydia removes her index finger from the curve of her right ear and swallows the panic climbing in her throat. There’s a faint ringing noise echoing in her eardrum. Has it ruptured? Or is this the beginning? She wipes the blood off on her jeans and steps over the dead body sprawled in front of the entrance to the grimy gas station bathroom. The mirror here is cracked, but functional. Lydia blinks at the reflection and twenty eyes blink back. She turns slightly and they all turn with her. In the dim sunlight spilling through the open doorway, she squints to inspect her mangled ear. The cartilage is torn, blood pooling in the shell. She feels sick with relief.

There’s a crunch of broken glass behind her. Her spine tenses. The fingers of her left hand curl around the loop of the Chinese ring dagger Allison had pressed into her hand two years ago. It was a gift of necessity. A worst-case-scenario gift.

This is the worst case scenario.

She sees him in the mirror before he sees her. Twenty reflections of a blood-caked face, an open sore oozing from the corner of his lips to his temple, the tip of his nose lost to illness or violence. His lips are moving, chewing. There’s nothing behind his eyes.

She waits until those dead eyes fall on her before she slides the dagger into the flesh of his jugular. He gapes, bug-eyed and fish-mouthed as hot blood spurts over her hand. He falls unceremoniously to the floor, his head cracking on the dirty tile. Lydia wipes her dagger on the end of his shirt, leaving a violent slick of crimson against the cotton. She spares another glance at the mirror.

She blinks at the reflection. Twenty eyes blink back.

There’s nothing there.

* * *

The sickness spread fast. Too fast. First it was clickbait on social media that a friend of a friend’s mom shared on her timeline. Within a month it was in the outlying suburbs, eating up entire neighborhoods in days. By the time it reached the major cities, it was too late. It gobbled up everything in one great bite. No time for a cure. No time for a plan. No hope in sight. Only the Immune were spared.

Lydia should consider herself lucky, really.

She doesn’t.

Her ear throbs against the cheap bandages she managed to salvage from the gas station she had scavenged earlier. There aren’t any pain meds in the apocalypse. She grits her teeth and sets her portable HAM radio across her knees. It’s been two days since she’s reported in. Ally might be worried.

She flicks a switch and with a crackle of fizzy static, the radio hums to life.

“Hey, Silver,” Lydia says into the worn mic, her thumb on the button. “There are more Ghost Riders here than in California. I feel like I run into one every time I turn around. Hope you’re having better luck out there. I’m on my way. I’ll see you soon.”

She pauses, finger still hovering over the button, eyes on the treeline.

“I miss you,” she whispers into the mic. “Banshee, out.”

She stows the HAM radio in her sack and slings it over her shoulder. She still has a mile to go before she can rest. She keeps her back to the sun as she walks, ever East, towards Allison.

* * *

She doesn’t see anything for two days. This stretch of highway is desolate, an endless expanse of reddish sand and scraggly shrubs. The sun beats down harsh on her face and she knows that there’s already a sunburn blossoming across the bridge of her nose. She allows herself to daydream about spreading aloe vera, cool and soothing, across the hot skin—but only for a moment. There’s no good in imagining luxuries in this new world that sickness carved out. There’s only the push forward and the thought of Allison, waiting for her somewhere on the other side of the country.

Still, when she sees the rusted top of a diner rising up out of the horizon, she can’t help the small spring of hope from surging in her chest. This far out in the desert, she’s hoping there might be something of use in there. Maybe some preserved food, some fresh water, maybe even a first aid kit. She picks up the pace. If nothing else, at least she’ll be out of the sun.

She’s almost to the front steps when she spots the beat-up blue Jeep parked on the far side of the building. It’s dirty and old, but it actually looks functional. Lydia can’t remember the last time she saw a working car. It must have been before the East coast went dark.

Lydia is trying to decide if it’s worth it to hotwire the Jeep when there’s a sudden crash and a choked yell from inside the diner. She pulls her dagger out of the sheath at her hip. She could run, avoid the fight. She knows she won’t. She plants her feet and prepares to charge the door.

She doesn’t get a chance to. There’s another series of bangs that rattle the door once, twice, and then the whole thing collapses backwards in a splinter of wood and a shatter of glass. All Lydia can see is a tangle of limbs, a flash of flannel, a streak of red. The bodies flail backwards over the steel guardrail of the stairs, flipping backwards and landing heavy in the dirt. They pause in their struggle, dazed, and Lydia can finally assess the situation.

The man on his back is maybe around her age. There’s a wound opened up along his hairline, blood smearing with the sweat coating his face. He’s Immune, probably. There’s no blood in his ears, no obvious signs of rot. The woman above him is another story. Open lesions ooze across the backs of her arms and climb up the side of her neck. Caked pus streaks from her ears down to the stained collar of her work shirt. She’s got her hands around the man’s throat, what’s left of her teeth grinding together in something resembling a smile.

“Get—fuck— _off_!” The man yells hoarsely, struggling against the woman’s grip. She’s got her knees planted on his upper arms, preventing him from getting out from under her. His feet kick wildly, trying to find purchase in the sand.

“You have to pay,” She responds serenely. “You pay for what’s taken. You pay for what’s gone.”

Lydia’s seen enough. She sprints forward and kicks, her boot meeting the woman’s jaw with a rattling _crunch_. She sprawls sideways and the man scrambles to his feet with a gasp.

“Not _fair_!” The woman screeches. “Pay for what’s gone! Not _fair_!”

_Of course it’s not fair_ , Lydia thinks.

She throws the dagger as the woman starts to stand. The blade plants directly in her eye, right up to the hilt. The woman slumps backwards against the diner. Her mouth gapes open, twitching at the corner. She spasms once. She doesn’t move again.

Of course it’s not fair.

“Holyfuckingshit. Holy fucking _shit_!” The man sputters behind her as Lydia moves to the woman’s body, grips the handle of the dagger, and pulls it back out of the woman’s face. Most of her eyeball comes with it.

“ _CHRIST_!”

Lydia scrapes it off with the heel of her boot and turns to the man, still shell-shocked on the dust of the earth.

“That the last of them?” She asks, jerking her head towards the diner. Her voice doesn’t quite sound like hers. She hasn’t spoken in days. She thinks she may have forgotten how. The man is blinking at her very rapidly, mouth hanging open.

“...Yeah. Think so,” He scrapes out.

She turns and makes her way to the entrance, unceremoniously calling over her shoulder. “Your head is bleeding.”

Glass crunches underfoot as she pokes her head in the doorway, dagger raised, looking left and then right. From behind, she can hear the man’s heavy breathing as he scrambles up to his feet.

“Don’t follow me,” She tells him, eyes still trained on the darkness of the diner.

He huffs indignantly, and it sounds much closer than she expected it to. She whirls around and her gaze hits his heaving chest, every inhale just barely grazing her shoulder. She slowly drags them up to glare at him, but he’s already glaring down at her.

He just witnessed her take out a Ghost Rider. He’s either got a death wish, is just plain stupid, or he’s a ballsy little shit.

“Look, thanks for saving my life and all, but I’m going in with you. I left my bat in there.”

“Your what?”

“My bat,” He says, making a swinging motion with his arms.

Stupid it is.

Lydia rolls her eyes and gingerly crosses the threshold, stupid man in tow. The air is stale, the windows haphazardly boarded up, the vinyl of the booths scratched open with stuffing pouring out like organs through a wound. There are newspapers littered across the floor, yellowed with time and gunky residue. She takes it in as the man steps from behind her and makes his way to the corner of the restaurant where a blood-splattered jukebox is located. In front of it, three dead infected bodies are sprawled out on the floor.

Lydia pretends to watch indifferently as he puts a foot on the chest of one and wraps his long fingers around the handle of a wooden baseball bat, giving it a yank. It comes away from the body with a horrible squelch, and she tries to look impassive rather than impressed at the bat with hundreds of jagged nails jutting out of the tip.

Brain matter and pieces of scalp cling to the edges of the nails.

The man turns to her with raised eyebrows, spinning the bat in one hand as if it were a beautifully pirouetting ballerina. He raises it to her, making a _cheers_ motion.

“Behold,” He says, gesturing with his free hand. “Bat.”

Lydia almost laughs at how ridiculous it is. Almost. It’s been so long since she’s laughed.

“Did you find anything else in here besides them?” She asks instead.

“Didn’t really have a chance to look,” He responds, kicking at one of the bodies on the floor.

“You check the bathrooms,” She tells him, rounding the counter. “I’ll check the kitchen.”

“Get me a milkshake while you’re back there,” He says. “Chocolate, with a cherry on top.”

The corners of her mouth twitch up.

Ballsy little shit.

Most of the food in the kitchen is rotten, like she expected. Still, she finds a few boxes of crackers that she shoves into her pack. The body of the chef is in the freezer. There’s a butcher knife planted in his chest. She wonders which of the Ghost Riders put it in there. She wonders if maybe it wasn't a Ghost Rider at all.

It doesn’t matter in the end.

As she’s heading back to the seating area, she spies a single jar of maraschino cherries underneath the counter. She thinks about leaving it there. She was never one for sweets. Instead, she grabs it on her way through the door.

“You find anything?” Lydia asks as the man comes out of the bathroom. He’s wiped the blood off of his face. There’s still a streak just under his jaw. He holds up a single roll of toilet paper.

“How are we supposed to eat that?” She says, deadpan. He stares at her for a solid twenty seconds before he understands it's a joke, and then he loses it. Lydia mashes her lips together and tries not to smile at the ridiculous snort noise he makes.

“What’d you find?” He asks. She tosses him the jar of cherries. He fumbles it between his free hand and the crook of his elbow before steadying it in his palm. He pauses, looking over the loot.

“You know,” He finally says, “That is just God-awful service. I asked for a _milkshake_.”

“No refunds.”

“I want to talk to the manager.”

“I’m pretty sure you already beat him to death with a baseball bat.”

His smile falters. Maybe she’s gone too far. Reality suddenly settles thickly over the two of them. There are four dead bodies—five including the woman outside. There’s blood on both their hands. They shouldn’t be joking about this.

“I guess if I’m not gonna get my money back, I’ll just leave,” He says with a shrug, walking towards the door. “This place smells anyway.”

Lydia lets him walk out the door, spinning the Chinese ring dagger around a finger. He’s the only uninfected person she’s been in contact with in nearly five months.

_Let him go_ , she thinks. _He’s a nobody. Let him go._

Maybe she’ll run into him again, but it’s doubtful. The west is barren. Has been for a long time. Everyone is east. Everyone, including Allison.

Allison. East. The junkpile of a Jeep, parked outside.

Lydia crosses the diner quickly and steps out into the blistering sun. She instinctively brings a hand up to shield her eyes and turns her head to make sure he hasn’t left for good.

She’s surprised to find him leaning against the side of the Jeep, his arms crossed and his bottom lip tucked between his teeth.

“So, hey,” He says.

“Hey,” She replies. She hovers awkwardly by the doorway, trying not to let her eyes shift to the only functioning vehicle in hundreds of miles.

“Listen,” He says, squinting up at her. “You really kicked some ass back there. I’m heading East, if you want a ride.”

He jerks his head over to the Jeep.

Lydia shifts from one foot to the other and pretends to mull it over, before finally hopping down the stairs and crossing to the passenger side.

“But you can’t have any of my cherries,” He says as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

This time, Lydia actually smiles.

* * *

“So you’re not planning on like, murdering me in my sleep, right?”

Lydia doesn’t look over.

“For the tenth time, _no_.”

“It’s just that it would be very uncool of you to murder me.”

“I’m _not going to murder you_.”

“Okay.”

Lydia closes her eyes and leans her head against the window, exhaling through her nose.

“Because it would be like, _so uncool of you_ to murder me—”

“I’m changing my answer. Yes, I’m going to murder you, but only if you don’t shut up about me murdering you.”

“...That’s just SO UNCOOL,” The man groans before he claps his mouth shut.

Lydia rolls her eyes and enjoys the momentary silence. After going five months without human contact, it’s exhausting to hold a conversation. But she’d be lying if she didn’t admit it was also exhilarating.

She sneaks a glance at the man, at the flesh and bone human being sitting directly next to her. A person. Another beating heart, when hers had been the only healthy one pounding for miles and miles and miles. Her body hums with feeling. She almost wants to reach out and touch him just to prove that he’s real. For a brief and wild moment, she wonders if he feels the same. She watches him swallow thickly as he pretends not to notice her examination, his simple body language giving his answer away.

She turns her burning gaze to the expanse of road that stretches out before them and closes her eyes against the glow.

They pass the next two hours in silence, driving until the sky is a brilliant indigo dotted with the bright pinpricks of a million stars. Lydia drifts in and out of a dreamless sleep, comforted by the steady roar of the engine and the warm presence of someone else beside her. She starts awake as the Jeep comes to a jarring stop on the side of the road. She looks around, trying to catch her bearings.

“I gotta stop for a few hours,” The man yawns, stretching his arms over his head and arching is back. Lydia hears his spine pop. “The sun’ll rise in three or so hours, we can keep going then.”

“Still worried I’m going to kill you in your sleep?”

He shrugs, tilting his seat back.

“I’m just gonna bank on hoping that you don’t know how to drive a stick.”

Lydia purses her lips. It’s true, she doesn’t.

He closes his eyes and shoves his arm behind his head, causing the edge of his dirty white shirt to pull up. Lydia looks at the two-inch strip of exposed skin, stark white in the night. Everything in this moment is still. There’s just the cool air of the night, the rise and fall of his chest, the steady beat of blood through her veins. She feels a craving build up in her belly, sending a wave of warmth spreading across her chest. It’s risky, but she’s been starving for feeling for so long. She’s been starving for touch.

Lydia reaches across determinedly, the pads of her fingers sliding along the curve of his hip and into the open hollow of his shirt. He jerks at her touch, reaching down to grab her forearm. She stills, looking up at his wide eyes in the dark.

“I’m just so...cold,” Lydia whispers, leaning closer to him. The knuckles of her free hand skim up the length of his arm. He doesn’t stop her. She angles her head towards his until their noses are brushing. Their eyes are locked and open. She can’t read the expression on his face. She hopes he can’t read hers.

There’s a single moment where she thinks she’s made a mistake. Somewhere between the erratic thumping of her heartbeat and the way he seems to be holding his breath, she considers the possibility of error. They’re strangers in the apocalypse, after all.

But then he stops holding his breath, a dam breaking inside of him as he surges forward and steals her own breath with a kiss. His arms come around her waist and he pulls her towards him. She lets her body drape like a rag doll across both seats as she's smothered, chest to chest. He holds her so tightly there, as if he can't get her close enough. As if that's where he's wanted her since the very beginning. He's as starved for it as her, she realizes. Just as hungry in his want for human contact, touch-starved and insatiable after being deprived of something so basic but so necessary for so long.

He wants. Needs, even. Almost as much as she wants it, too.

She moans against his lips and he grunts gutturally in response, his hand travelling up the back of her shirt. His fingertips are electric against her skin. She kicks her boots off and peels her jeans from her legs before sliding into his lap. Her thighs straddle his own, and she's vaguely aware of the steering wheel that digs into her back and only serves to press her closer to him. She feels pinned, in every sense of the word, like a butterfly spread in frozen flight.

His hips jerk up as soon as she sits on his lap. She can feel him hard against her through the fabric of his jeans and she grinds down. He lets out a small gasp, moving fingers through her long hair to cup the back of her neck and pull her closer. She moans in response, bringing her hands from his chest to cup his face.

_Clo-ser. Clo-ser,_ she feels her heart beg. And when she wraps her arms around his neck, she can feel the beg of his heartbeat finishing her own. She breaks away from his mouth, both breathless and heaving, and she reaches between them, hand slinking down his torso to unbuckle his belt. He watches her do it with hooded, unfocused eyes, and once she pulls it apart he unbuttons his pants and shoves them down to his knees while she strips off her shirt. They carelessly discard their clothes and snap back into place, bodies desperate to reunite. He licks a line under the edge of her jaw and drags his bottom teeth across her pulse point. She mews and slides across him, already wet through her panties. The man guides the jerk of her hips across his lap with gripping fingers that dig into her skin as he pants hotly across her jaw, head dipping down.

He mumbles something into her neck that she can't make out.

“What?” She whispers into his ear. But he shakes his head and tightens his arms around her, hug-like in his embrace.

She's burning up, every sporadic thrust of his hips making her stomach somersault wildly. She reaches down and tucks her fingers into the waistband of his briefs. He lifts his hips and together they push the fabric down until it joins the pants at his ankles.

There's a moment. Somewhere between the quick seconds where he grips himself at the base of his cock and Lydia rises to her knees, there’s a moment. The light from the moon illuminating his skin. The dark trail of hair from his bellybutton to his erection. The way his eyes are bright and burning into hers and _alive._ So full of life that it hurts.

She pulls her panties to the side and sinks down.

Her breath catches in her throat, and he cradles the back of her head.

“Stiles,” He whispers in her ear. She tries to calm her breathing, eyes screwed shut at the feeling of being filled.

“What?” She shakily breathes out.

“It's my name,” He says, swallowing roughly. “My name is Stiles.”

And then he's moving, thrusting up into her while pulling her down to meet him. Lydia cries out, bouncing limply in his arms while her body adjusts to the sensation.

He kisses her everywhere. Every inch of her face and her chest. His hips brutally fuck up into her, but his hands shake when he brushes the hair away from her face, tenderly. Lovingly.

She starts to talk. She tells him how good it feels, and how much she wants it, and she pleads with him for more.

It's her confessions that do it. He raises her up, pulls himself out with a groan through his teeth that sounds borderline painful, and comes between them. Thick white spurts paint her stomach and coat his own, and it takes her much longer than expected to realize their foreheads are pressing against each other, noses grazing and eyes locked.

They pant into each other' mouths, hands still moving wearily along backs and arms in soothing circles, the need to touch still necessary despite exhaustion.

“Lydia,” She kisses into his lips.

He pulls his head back and holds her face with both hands.

“Lydia.”

* * *

They drive for a day and see nothing but sand. They don’t say anything. It’s easier that way.

* * *

Stiles pulls off at the first gas station they see after they cross into New Mexico. Lydia stretches her legs thankfully, working the knots out of her thighs. She’s used to hiking day in and day out to get where she’s going. Driving in a car is both a luxury and a liability on her body.

“I’m gonna do a sweep,” Stiles says, grabbing his bloody baseball bat from his backseat. She almost tells him to be careful, but the words die in the back of her throat as he climbs out of the Jeep and closes the door behind him. As he walks through the empty entryway of the gas station, Lydia spies a spray painted symbol on the white brick at the bottom of the building. It looks almost like a firefly, but she’s too far away to tell for certain.

She listens for signs of struggle, but hears none and is satisfied. Vaguely, Lydia wonders if she should follow him, but exhaustion wins out and she allows herself a moment of laziness. Her eyes drift around the Jeep that’s served as their transportation and shelter over the past twenty-four hours. She’s made mental notes of how many clicking noises the engine makes in the span of an hour, and the way the steering wheel vibrates under his hands. The backseat is makeshift storage, holding a few flannels, a blanket, a toolbox, gas cans, and everything scavenged from abandoned properties.

Lydia reaches behind her seat for the blanket and pulls it up and across her lap. It was covering a simple black box. She smoothes the blanket out over her legs, but then turns back around, blinking at the new discovery. She knows what the box means. She’s seen others like it before.

The revelation of the box introduces new energy to the cabin of the car. Lydia feels a somberness seep into the air, making it thick. She looks around for Stiles, but he’s still nowhere to be seen, and it’s so quiet.

Gingerly, she reaches back and places a single fingertip to the box.

_Death_.

She curls her finger under the lip of the lid and gently flicks upward. Through the crack in the box, she sees grey ashes in a plastic bag. She pushes the lid back down and turns around to stare out the windshield.

A few minutes later, Stiles pops into view, approaching the car with a grim smile.

“Snickers,” He says as a greeting, tossing the single candybar into her lap. He clambers into the driver’s seat and sticks the key into the ignition, but doesn’t start the car. His eyes are frozen on the blanket. Lydia doesn’t breathe.

When Stiles drags his eyes back up to hers, she says nothing. He turns the key and the Jeep roars to life with a grunt. Stiles finally turns his head, breaks her gaze, and the moment ends.

She lets a full hour pass before she brings it up.

“So,” She says nonchalantly to her fingernails. “Are those ashes in the backseat?”

Stiles keeps his eyes on the road.

“Yup.”

She waits for him to expand. He doesn’t.

Lydia gets it. She has secrets too.

It occurs to her that this man next to her may have his own demons to fight. Maybe he had seen the same horrors she had. Maybe his were even worse.

She peels the crinkly wrapper off the chocolate bar, and splits it in half. It’s half melted and gooey in her fingertips, but it comes apart anyway. Wordlessly, she holds out a piece to him.

He glances at it, then her, and when he takes it out of her hand their fingertips brush.

It’s all she can offer him right now. It will have to be enough.

* * *

It’s almost midnight when Lydia’s had enough.

“You have to pull over. I’m not sleeping in the fucking Jeep again.”

“Excuse you, this is _my_ Jeep. Please watch your language, ma’am.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“My Jeep is my baby, I don’t want you corrupting her innocence.”

“ _Seriously_?” Lydia says, giving him a knowing look that he pretends to miss. “You’re _seriously_ saying that to me?”

Stiles coughs into his shoulder, a flush coming to his cheeks. They haven’t talked about it. Lydia isn’t sure she wants to.

“Just pull the damn Jeep over, Stiles.”

“Fine,” He says, acquiescing and guiding the Jeep onto the shoulder of the road. “Whatever makes you stop defiling this sacred space with your filthy mouth.”

She doesn't know why he’s bitching. He seemed to really enjoy her filthy mouth a few nights ago. She almost tells him so.

He puts the car in park and turns off the engine. When he climbs out and sees she’s not following suit, he frowns.

“I guess I’ll go set up camp.”

“You do that,” Lydia crosses her arms. “I’m gonna sit here and corrupt your baby a little while longer.”

Stiles throws a hand in the air, eyes rolling dramatically in his head. “Fine. Hand me my bat and my bag?”

Lydia climbs onto her knees to dig around in the backseat. When she turns back around Stiles’s eyes jump back to hers, clearly having been ogling her ass.

“Oh yeah,” She says. “You’re really pious.”

“For your information, I’m _outside_ of my Jeep. I follow the commandments of the Jeep.”

“When it suits you.”

They give each other a long, hard look.

“Yeah,” He murmurs with a smirk, voice gravelly and suddenly much lower. “When it suits me.”

He closes the door and Lydia’s alone.

The headlights of the Jeep illuminate the makeshift campsite, and she waits until his back is turned to pull the HAM radio from her bag. It’s been days since she’s made an update. She hopes Allison isn’t worried.

“Hey, Silver,” She says into the mic. “Sorry for the delay. I found someone out here. He’s Immune, like me, I think. Carries around this ridiculous baseball bat he’s shoved nails through. And he’s got a working car! Isn’t that crazy? Hopefully we’ll get to you by your birthday and we can spend it together. Just like old times. Well...I guess not really.”

Lydia looks up at Stiles to find him staring at her out of the corner of his eye. When he’s caught, he hastily turns back to the sleeping bags he’s arranging on either side of a small fire pit dug in the sand. She feels exposed, somehow. Like she caught him looking at her through a crack in a door.

“Anyway…” She trails off, eyes still pinned on him. “Guess I found a bit of luck. Hope you’re finding even better luck out there. Miss you. Banshee, out.”

She tucks the radio away and slides out of the Jeep, cautiously making her way over to Stiles.

“You done defiling my baby?” He asks her as she sidles up next to him. He’s crouched down with flint and steel, smacking the two together over a bundle of dry twigs.

“Your baby liked it.”

He huffs, opening his mouth to make what’s sure to be a smartass comment when his kindling sparks and starts to burn. He lowers himself down, blowing on the small flame until it catches and roars to life. He raises his arms in a victory pose and Lydia claps in approval. He looks up at her with a wide smile, his face bathed in the growing light from the fire.

“Your campsite, ma’am,” He says, gesturing around them.

“It’s acceptable,” She replies, wrinkling her nose in fake dissatisfaction.

He whistles lowly and shakes his head.

“Tough crowd, tough crowd.”

She gives him a small smile before she collapses backwards on her sleeping bag. She stretches her arms over her head and yawns, toeing off her boots.

“So…” Stiles says from beside her, sprawling his legs out in the dirt. “You’re Banshee?”

Lydia sits up on her elbows and levels him with what she hopes is a taciturn look. He’s keeping his features carefully neutral.

“How do you know about Banshee?” She asks after a long pause.

“The transmission comes through on my radio,” He responds, pointing to the Jeep. “You’re the only voice for miles. I’ve been following it since California.”

Lydia pulls her lower lip between her teeth. She isn’t sure what to say.

“Where’s Silver at?” Stiles asks softly.

“When I lost contact, she was in Louisiana. She was heading East. She wanted to help people.”

Stiles gives a small smile. He turns to gaze into the flames, the wavering light casting long shadows across his features.

“Sounds like what my best friend would do. He wanted to go to Virginia. What’s left of it.”

“Is that where you’re headed?”

“Yeah,” He nods. “After Louisiana.”

They lock eyes through the flames. Lydia doesn’t think she can speak. So she decides to act instead.

She stands. Stiles keeps his expression impassive.

“Stiles,” She says, struggling to keep her voice steady. “I’m cold again.”

She can physically see the breath rush out of him. All he can do is nod.

Lydia crosses over to him. He turns his head to follow her movement, leaning back on his hands and leveling her with a hooded stare.

She still doesn’t know what to say, even when they’re face to face and she’s sitting in his lap. Instead, she leans forward and gently kisses his cheek. His eyes flutter shut.

Stiles wraps his arms around her and she curls her own around his neck. Once again it’s almost like a hug, disguised as something far more lascivious. It’s an excuse. It’s the only way it makes the embrace somewhat okay.

Lydia brings her head down to the crook of his neck. When she kisses there, he shivers.

“Are you cold?” She whispers into his skin. He pulls back to stare at her mouth.

“No,” He says.

And then he’s diving forward, gripping her chin with his hand and pushing his lips to hers. She moans into him, and he bites the plushness of her lower lip. When she opens her mouth to moan again, his tongue meets hers and they both sigh at the contact.

Her fingers dig into the back his neck as she raises herself on her knees. This time he’s the one to pull off her shirt, trailing his fingertips along her ribcage as he does it, leaving goosebumps in his wake. He’s bolder with her now, groping her ass and squeezing her chest in ways he hadn’t the first time they’d done this. She still has the bruises on her hip bones from his fingerprints as he had gripped her body to move her.

She likes it. She likes this stranger’s imprint on her skin. Likes that it’s something semi-permanent in a temporary moment in a fucked up world. But as Stiles moves to lave at her neck, nipping and sucking the skin, she thinks that this moment, this _habit_ , may be anything but temporary.   

“ _Fuck_ ,” He whispers into her neck as she drags her nails along his scalp and gives his hair a tug. She hums against him in response. He moves back to drag his shirt up and over his head and she smiles down at him in the orange light. She gently kisses his forehead, then the tip of his nose, then moves down to swallow his growing grin. She continues down, pressing her lips against his chin, the hollow between his collarbones, the center of his sternum. When she reaches the line of hair beneath his navel, he sucks in a breath and holds it. She smirks, kissing the button of his jeans and letting her hands slide up his thighs and tuck into the band of denim slung low on his hips. She gently bites the bulge beneath the fabric before pulling lightly at his pants. He unbuttons his jeans with shaking fingers and she tugs them down and off for him, tossing them aside. He’s completely exposed under her, his mouth hanging open and his eyes creased with desperation and hunger and need.

She smiles sweetly up at him, taking him in her palm. His breath catches and he twitches in her hand. She keeps eye contact as she lowers herself down and licks a broad line from his balls to the tip of his dick. He arches his hips into her tongue, bringing one hand up to cover his mouth as the other curls against the back of her head.

“No,” She says, pulling back enough for him to feel her hot breath against him. “Hand down.”

He nods and fists the sleeping bag at his side instead. She circles the head of his cock once with her tongue before taking him all in her mouth at once. This time, he doesn’t hold back his moan.

She bobs her head up and down leisurely, curling her lips over her teeth for friction while pressing her tongue into the underside of his dick. She wraps a hand around the base of him and pumps up and down, working his erection as she goes. He thrusts up into her mouth, hitting the back of her throat. She holds his hip down with her free hand. She wants to be in control. She wants to be the one to bring him to the edge and break him apart, just like he did to her their first night together. She wants to show him that she can give him this. His fingers thread through her hair, his mouth forming words he doesn’t have the breath to say. She takes him all the way down to the base, humming around him before pulling him out of her mouth entirely and pumping her hand up and down. He laughs breathlessly, his eyes closed and his smile loose.

“You’re really fucking good at that,” He says huskily. His tongue comes out to wet his lips. Lydia licks another line up his dick as thanks. He moves suddenly, reaching forward to pull her up towards him and giving her a sloppy kiss. She responds greedily, mouth open and panting against his own. He cradles her body, flipping her to lay beneath him on the sleeping bag, his erection hot against her stomach.

“My turn, yeah?” He almost whispers, searching her face in dimming light of the fire. She reaches up impulsively, tracing the curve of his cheekbone with her palm. He leans into her touch, turning to press a kiss against her fingers. She bites her bottom lip to hide her smile and nods.

He moves immediately, latching onto her breast as he tugs off her jeans. When he moves away she can see a hickey already beginning to form where he had focused his ministrations and she feels her heart tug pleasantly in her chest. He sits back on his knees to look down at her, one of his broad hands trailing down to rest just between her thighs. His thumb brushes against her clit and she bucks up at the contact. He spreads his fingers and presses down, using his other hand to guide the slick shaft of his dick over her already wet folds. She keens and he smiles reverently at the sound. He pushes himself against her teasingly, pulling back just before he slips inside her. She growls, squirming beneath him, desperate for some relief. He snickers, the bastard, before he lowers himself down and buries his tongue between her legs.

Lydia cries out as he tongues her clit, using his hands to open her thighs wide apart. She brings her hand up to cover the sound and he pulls back with a wet sound.

“No,” He tells her. “Hand down.”

She laughs at his parroting, planting her hand on the crown of his head and pushing him down. He licks across the length of her, teasing her clit with the scrape of his bottom teeth before he slowly pushes his thumb into her. She gasps at the sensation, clenching around him and pulling lightly on his hair. She swears she feels him laugh against her before his mouth is on her again. She feels ravished, opened up and devoured by his mouth and his body and his will. He pumps in and out of her as he pants and moans wetly into her cunt. Her thighs tremble against his hands as she writhes beneath him. He raises his head, his chin coated in her.

“You wanna come, Lydia?” He asks her, removing his thumb and pressing the heel of his hand against her wanting heat. Lydia tries to form words and finds she can’t, a series a nonsense syllables spilling out instead. He smiles down at her and she could swear sunlight spilled out of him as he did. Two of his fingers push just inside her and just as quickly come out.

“You wanna come on my face?” He asks lowly, his pupils blown out with lust. She shakes her head, focusing on forming words.

“Want you inside me,” She pants.

“Yeah?” He says, moving above her until his dick is once more positioned just at her entrance.

“Mmhmm,” Lydia moans, pushing against him, desperate to be filled. He pulls back as she moves down, leaving him tantalizingly out of reach. She whines with disapproval, her head thrown back against the sleeping bag.

“You gotta enunciate, Lydia. I need to hear you want it.”

The _bastard_. She wraps one hand around his forearm as the other slaps at his thigh, but he won’t budge.

“ _Yes_!” She wails. “God, _please_ , Stiles!”

It’s what he wanted to hear.

He surges forward, sliding into her as he covers her gasp with a kiss that tastes like her. Pounding into her, he curves an arm under her lower back to raise her up as he buries his face against her neck. Lydia sees the stars above her in a milky galaxy as her body rocks in time with his own before she closes her eyes to the night sky. She cries out as she comes, all sensation overtaken by the explosion of new stars behind her eyelids and the wave of heat curling through her body. He follows as she’s coming down, pulling out and shooting white release across her stomach and the underside of her breasts, creating constellations on her skin that mirror those above them.

Stiles slumps over her, breathing hard against her chest. She brings a hand up to gently stroke his hair and she feels him sigh against her.

“You’re really fucking good at that,” She murmurs. He bursts out laughing and props his head up to stare at her. His eyes are bright in the darkness of the night, his face more open than she’s ever seen him be. She reaches between them and laces their fingers together, still slick with his come.

“Allison,” She whispers. His face flickers. “Silver. Her real name is Allison.”

He squeezes her hands. She gets what he’s trying to say.

* * *

Lydia wakes up two hours later, the fire died out and her feet in the cool dirt. Stiles’ breath is hot on her neck, one arm draped between her breasts, hand cradling her jaw while the other provides a pillow for her head.

Gingerly, she tries to raise onto her elbows, peering over the embers of the dead fire to covet the remaining sleeping bag, but her head feels like concrete and her arms wobble dangerously. She collapses back into his arms and when she turns her head to look at him he’s already looking at her.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” She whispers, and her nose grazes against his.

“I’m a light sleeper,” He whispers back against her lips, and they’re kissing again. Sleepily, languidly, sweetly.

“Sleeping bag,” She murmurs, eventually pulling away and pushing a hand against his chest when he tries to follow her mouth. She tries rising again, muscles screaming out in protest. He watches her, wrapping a hand around her arm to help before moving it between her breasts and gently pushing back down.

She flushes when they lock eyes.

“I’ll get it,” He says, and returns to her with the bag in hand. He hovers awkwardly and Lydia realizes it’s because he’s unsure of her intentions. He thinks she wants to sleep on her own.

“Unzip it,” She says, “And come lay down next to me.”

They end up unzipping both bags, spreading one out to cover more ground and using the other for a blanket. Their bodies find each other again and she tries not to think too much about it. He’s hard again against her back, one hand splayed across her stomach, the other groping at her breast, feet tangled.

She thinks he’s asleep, judging by the warmed air of his slow breaths against her scalp. But then he speaks.

“I knew it was you. I knew you were Banshee almost right away. I could tell. You were my only companion. You were with me from the very beginning. Before you even knew it, you were with me. I needed you. I can’t tell you how much.”

Something catches in her throat at his confession. She doesn’t know why her eyes begin to sting. She stares at the dead fire, and then the stars, and then the dark, until she slips into slumber and there’s nothing.

* * *

When Lydia wakes up, he’s already gone. She jolts upright, clutching the sleeping bag to her bare chest while trying to quell the panic pooling in her stomach. Her eyes dart around wildly before landing on Stiles loading his bag into the Jeep, eyes already on hers.

She feels ashamed, somehow. Like she was caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to do. Her gaze drops to her sleeping bag, and then to the clothing folded neatly in a pile next to her.

“I made you breakfast,” He calls out to her, and she looks at him again. He holds out a single cracker in his palm. She bites her lip and rearranges her face into something casual.

“Good,” She says, clearing her throat. “I’m starving.”

She keeps her back to him as she changes into her clothes. They won’t talk about it again, just like last time. It’s still easier that way.

* * *

“Hot showers.”

“Baseball.”

“Wikipedia.”

“Ohhh, that’s a good one. _CSI: Miami_.”

“ _Grey’s Anatomy_.”

“Nerd. The Mets.”

“You already said baseball.”

“I can miss both, Lydia.”

“Whatever you say. Um...farmer’s markets.”

“In-N-Out.”

“Gross. Moisturizer.”

“Reddit.”

“What? Really?”

Stiles gives her a scrupulous look.

“This is _my_ list, Lydia. Things _I_ miss from before the apocalypse.”

“Well it’s a stupid list.”

“Don’t mock my list, I didn’t make fun of you for missing _gel pens_.”

“I will murder you in your sleep.”

“Oh, we’re back to _this_ again? I’m adding ‘not having to worry about being murdered in my sleep’ to my list.”

“I’m going to add ‘not being trapped in a Jeep with someone I want to murder’ to mine.”

“Yeah, you look _totally_ trapped,” He says, staring pointedly at her feet kicked up on the dashboard and the blanket shoved behind her head as a pillow. She pouts and smacks his shoulder in response.

“I miss _people_ ,” She says softly, crossing her arms.

“Well, I miss porn.”

She sees him wince. He realizes it might have been the wrong thing to say. Lydia can still feel his fingertips on her skin, and she glances in the side mirror at the glaring hickey blossoming across her neck. Somewhere beneath her shirt its match decorates her breast. She trails her fingers over the fabric where she imagines it to be. The silence hangs uncomfortably around them.

“...I miss porn, too.”

Stiles turns his head to her, a crooked smile growing slowly across his face.

“Yeah?” He says.

“Yeah.”

His eyes are still on hers when a water tower rises from the horizon.

“Look,” She points, and he turns his head to follow. On the side of the water tower is the same symbol she saw at the gas station: a twisting yellow firefly.

“Is that—” Stiles starts, before there’s a loud bang and the Jeep veers off the road. Lydia yelps, throwing her feet down and bracing herself against the dash as Stiles shouts, trying to gain control of the vehicle. They come to a jarring stop off the shoulder.

Stiles throws the door open, jumping out to inspect the damage.

“The tires are blown,” Stiles says, incredulous, kicking the rubber angrily.

“How?” Lydia asks, leaning over his seat for a better look. Stiles glares down at the tire, his brow furrowing. He reaches forward and extracts something with a loud _clank_. He holds the object up for Lydia to see. It’s a crude spike made of bone and steel, wound together with bits of wire. He examines it with a worried look before snapping his gaze up to the symbol on the water tower.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” He mutters.

“What?”

Stiles spins and looks towards the pavement disappearing to the East and something that he’s hearing casts a shadow of fear across his face.

“ _FUCK._ Get out of the car, get out of the car, go, go, _now_.”

Lydia kicks the door open and grabs her bag at her feet as Stiles reaches through the window to grab his bat. When she steps out onto the sand, she can hear what has him frantic: engines, several of them, approaching fast.

“There!” He yells, pointing to a collection of large rocks fifty yards away. They take off running. Lydia slings her bag over her shoulders and pumps her legs as fast as she can to keep up with his pace. Behind them, the engines roar and she knows they're running out of time.

She keeps her eyes on the rocks to focus on anything other than the burning in her lungs and the wild pounding of her heart, but Stiles’ eyes dart between them to make sure she's keeping up and over his shoulder to see how close they're getting.

They scramble behind the rock formation, her breath rattling so hard in her chest she begins to cough. Stiles pulls the collar of her shirt up and over her nose and mouth to filter out the dust they've kicked up in their wake before peeking out from behind the pile.

“What's going on?” Lydia shouts, the engines easily covering her voice. “Stiles?”

She places a hand on his forearm and he jumps. She spares a glance around the edge of the rocks.

There are seven figures, two on growling motorcycles reinforced with thick black metal plates and lined with jutting spikes. The remaining five are piled into a truck with high tires. They all wear an assortment of black, patched clothing and metal face masks welded together into grotesque expressions. The three men on the back of the truck jump down and start circling the Jeep like vultures. One turns to look in their direction and Lydia ducks back down.

Stiles leans in close to her, cupping his hand around her ear.

“Get ready—”

But then he stops, eyes wide on hers as a grating noise rips through the dry desert air. He whips back around, this time sticking his face completely out into the open. She can't hear the word, but she sees his mouth scream out the word _fuck._

He throws himself backwards, back slamming into the rocks, and drops his head to his hands. Lydia reaches out to him, but suddenly the deafening grinding and roaring noises begin to lull, and she can hear tires on pavement and the gradual decrescendo of machinery. They—whoever they are—are leaving. So why does Stiles look lost to hopelessness?

“They took her,” He spits, as soon as she opens her mouth to ask. “They fucking took her.”

Lydia stands up to see, and sure enough, there is nothing but a stretch of cracked road and the singular water tower with the yellow symbol looming above them. She can see the plume of kicked up sand leading over the horizon in the direction the vehicles had gone. The Jeep is nowhere in sight.

“I'm sorry,” She says as he stands to join her.

Stiles is fuming. She can almost physically feel the waves of rage rolling off him. His face has contorted into a violent expression she’s never seen on him before. His eyes are wild and murderous, his mouth pulled down in a snarl. He suddenly grabs a rock off the pile and hurls it into the direction they came from.

“Mother _FUCKING ONI!!!”_

Lydia feels her insides freeze. Sure, their territory had been marked, she'd seen the fireflies, but—

“I thought they were all dead?” She asks, trying to keep her voice level to temper the fury in him.

“Apparently not. They fucking took my Jeep!” Stiles hisses, and throws his hands into his hair. “Fucking shit!”

They turn to look at each other, his shoulders heaving.

“I'm going,” Stiles says flatly. “I gotta get her back.”

She crosses her arms and gives him a hard look.

“No car is worth your life, Stiles.”

“This one is.”

“Stiles—”

“ _Look,”_ He shouts, and she jumps at the volume. “You don't have to come. I _need_ that Jeep. I need it, it's important. There's something I have—”

He cuts himself off with a snap of his jaw. She watches his nostrils flare and his jaw flex around the words he can't communicate.

All at once she thinks of the small black box still in the backseat of his Jeep. The bits of bone fragment and dust that used to be someone to him. _Ashes_ is a single word. Two syllables. Five letters. It should be easy to say, yet she also knows it's impossible for him to speak it out loud. Impossible for him to tell her that it's the reason he needs to get the Jeep back.

She gets it. She knows all about death and denial.

He pauses for just a moment, his mouth opening as if to say something more. Instead he turns and starts towards the settling trail of dust, leaving her standing alone in the desert.

So she turns and begins walking.

She made it hundreds of miles by herself. It’s easier alone. She’s lost enough people to know that. She could keep going. Should keep going.

She stops.

_Let him go_ , she thinks. _He’s nobody._

Except he isn’t.

He’s _Stiles_.

She catches up with him in ten minutes. He swings around as he hears her approach and she swears for just a second he smiles.

“What are you doing?” He asks.

“Thought you might need help,” She replies lamely.

He nods, his jaw clenching.

“Let’s hope they didn’t go far.”

* * *

They walk for six hours.

Lydia’s clothes are sticking to her, dirt caked into the creases of her arms and her hair a tangled mess piled on the top of her head. Stiles isn’t doing much better. He’s taken off his flannel and wrapped it around his waist and his white shirt is almost transparent from sweat. They haven’t said a word since they started walking, though they’ve been wordlessly passing Lydia’s canteen of water between them every hour or so. The sun is settling low over the horizon, casting everything in a fiery orange glow. Lydia isn’t sure how much longer they can last.

She’s about to say so when finally, the dark shadows of buildings rise on the horizon. On the side of the closest structure, she can make out the bright yellow firefly.

“Gotcha, you fucking _bastards_ ,” Stiles growls, beginning to stalk towards the building.

“Stiles, wait,” Lydia says, grabbing his arm. He spins around, something feral in his expression. His mouth drops open to protest.

“We should go in at night,” She says, pointing to the setting sun. “It’s just the two of us against their whole gang. We need to surprise them.”

Stiles snaps his head back to look at the camp, narrowed eyes focusing on the taunting firefly. She keeps her hand on his arm, feeling his muscle tense beneath her palm.

“You’re right,” He finally admits, his jaw clenching. He turns to look around for some form of cover to wait out in until nightfall but quickly does a double take, eyes freezing on something that catches his focus.

“Is that…” He starts. “Is that a fucking _arm_?”

Lydia follows his gaze with a furrowed brow until it lands on an object jutting out from the sand. It almost blends in with the beige of the landscape, but he caught it, and now she stares at it too. An arm, bizarrely sticking up from the earth, and pointing in the direction of the Oni camp.  

“Is it...pointing the way to camp?” Lydia asks incredulously.

“Who _are_ these guys?” Stiles squints. “That’s a fake arm, right?”

“God, I hope so. Should we go check?”

Stiles looks between the arm and the camp.

“We need to do a sweep of the perimeter,” He says. “Figure out our best plan of attack.”

He motions towards the arm.

“We’ll head this way first, see what the fuckin’ arm’s about.”

They crouch as they cross to make themselves as small as possible in case there are Oni scouts. Lydia’s body is screaming in discomfort by the time they reach the arm. Sure enough, it’s a mannequin’s arm planted in the sand. All of the fingers but the index and the thumb have been snapped off, forming a makeshift arrow. Their continued sweep finds similar arms surrounding the camp and one leg, all pointing directly at the camp.

“Well thank God for that,” Lydia says under her breath. “Otherwise we’d never find it.”

Stiles blinks at her a few times before coughing something like a laugh. It’s the first time his mouth has twisted upward in hours. Lydia hadn’t realized how much she missed his smile. She immediately tries to forget the feeling. This is not the place.

“So, what’s the plan?” She asks. The sun is well under the plateaus in the distance, the slim line of blue dusk outlining them giving way to the indigo night sky. She can already see what she assumes to be campfires burning in the Oni camp, the firelight throwing the outlines of buildings into stark relief.

“We take the eastern approach, where it’s darkest. The walls are closer together there so we’ll have more cover. We move together. I’ll stay in front, you protect our rear. Break past the first line of buildings and then readjust the plan when we know what’s inside.”

Lydia stares up at him. He’s said everything methodically, his eyes scanning the lights of the camp. She’s struck by the knowledge that she has no idea who he was or what he did before illness destroyed the world. He sounds like a tactician, like he did this and was _good_ at it. She wonders briefly if she’ll ever know.

He turns to her when she doesn’t respond.

“Got it?” He asks.

She nods, unsheathing her knife and holding it tight.

“Ready,” She says. He raises his bat and wraps both hands around the grip.

“Then let’s move.”

He starts towards the camp and Lydia dutifully follows, keeping her eyes sweeping behind them.

They reach the first wall in fifteen minutes, quickly pressing their backs to it for cover as Stiles glances around the corner. He motions Lydia forward and she moves alongside him for a closer look. Through the gap in the buildings she can make out a makeshift main street of four boxy shops crammed together in a row, a line of glowing lanterns forming a road. The signs on all the buildings are blank, though the Oni have painted dripping fireflies on the glass door fronts. Lydia can see figures standing stationary in the windows of the upper floors. She cannot make out any of the figures’ features from their position.

Stiles backs the opposite direction, towards the far end of the building where the darkness is thicker. He peeks his head around the corner, then quickly slides back into position. He raises his bat in preparation, then disappears around the brick with a swing. There’s a dull _thunk_ , then Stiles is stumbling backwards, something caught on the end of his bat. He yanks the object down to get his bat free and the thing collapses at his feet. A mannequin head stares up at them, its dull, painted eyes looking up at its attackers in the the dim light. Its body lays crumpled beneath it in a heap.

“What the fuck is this place?” Stiles says under his breath, nudging the head away with his foot.

“It’s a dummy town,” Lydia says, suddenly remembering.

“Obviously,” Stiles mutters. “Wait, what does that mean?”

“In the ‘50s the army built a bunch of dummy towns to test their bombs on,” Lydia responds. “This must be one of them.”

Stiles looks up at her to retort, but his eyes slide immediately to something over her shoulder.

“ _Duck_ ,” He says, already pulling the bat back to swing. Lydia does as she’s told, dropping to her knees and rolling to the left. She hears the squelch of the nails meeting flesh, the gasp of death from a would-be attacker. She stands to find an Oni slumped to his knees where she was just standing, Stiles’s bat still planted in his skull. Stiles wrenches the bat away and the Oni falls, twitching, into the dirt. Stiles brings the bat down once more for good measure. The Oni does not move again.

Stiles looks down at her, a small streak of the Oni’s blood splattered across his neck.

“One down. Cover our rear,” He says. She opens her mouth to respond when she sees a figure closing in behind him. She lets her dagger fly, watches it sail over his shoulder and connect with the Oni’s throat. Stiles spins around, bringing the bat down again on the falling figure.

“Two down,” Lydia says. “Let’s move.”

Stiles gives her a brutal smile in the dark, then starts down the alley. Lydia stoops to extract her blood-soaked knife from the body of the second Oni before trailing after him. She keeps her eyes on the shadows. She doesn’t want to be surprised again.

There’s no sign of life as Stiles and Lydia creep alongside the buildings. Lydia recognizes the stiff posture of mannequins in the windows now, can even make out the exaggerated features painted on their faces if she focuses hard enough. She feels a prickle of unease slip into her gut. Where are the Oni? She expected this place to be crawling with them.

Stiles stops and points to a large structure in roughly the middle of town. Unlike the other buildings, this one seems to be cobbled together of discarded bits of lumber and steel. The result resembles an airplane hangar in miniature, the domed roof slanting down sharply on one side to reveal a rough opening large enough for cars to pass through. The roar of generators emanates from the building and beams of light shoot out of the seams in the construction. Through the cracks she can just make out the blue of the Jeep.

She can hear Stiles snarl something she can’t understand as he makes a impulsive beeline towards the entrance of the hangar. Lydia reaches out to grab at his arm and pull him back to safety. A strange, unidentifiable feeling twists in her gut, but her fingertips brush his shirt and grasp only air. He makes it four steps before a whizzing noise cuts through the night, and there’s the sound of a wet impact. Stiles jerks sideways, his shoulder slamming into the wooden wall behind him. A throwing star is embedded in his chest, the sharp edges glinting orange in the light from the lanterns. Stiles stands frozen, looking down at the wound with his jaw open. Lydia’s breath catches and holds.

A small dagger streaks through the air and plants itself in the wood next to Lydia’s cheek. Time starts to move in fast forward.

She grabs Stiles’ arm and yanks him back as a sudden volley of weapons begins to rain down. They’ve been surrounded the entire time without knowing it, sealed in with no escape like the slam of a coffin lid. Lydia heads for the bright lights of the hangar, running in a zig zag as daggers and arrows and throwing stars plant themselves in the sand behind them. She can’t fight them in the shadows, so she’ll force them to fight in the light. Stiles almost stumbles behind her, but gains his bearings and keeps up with her pace, eyes wild.

They dive through the door and duck around the edge, feeling the impact of weapons smashing against the wood at their backs.

“Motherfucking _Oni_ ,” Stiles spits, panting frantically. He reaches to yank the star out of his chest, but Lydia stops him.

“Don’t touch it!” She says, her voice pitched. “You don’t know what it’s hit. You could bleed out.”

“I have a fucking dagger sticking out of my chest!”

“It’s a throwing star.”

“Are you _serious_ right now?”

Lydia doesn’t answer, already scanning her surroundings. The Jeep is ten yards away, parked between two motorcycles. The front tires have already been replaced and the front bumper has been reinforced with black metal plates. A single yellow dot paints the passenger door, the yellow can of spraypaint lying in the sand beneath the Jeep. It seems the Oni were planning on adding to their motorcade. On the ceiling of the hangar, four generators ring the interior, powering the dozens of lights overhead and connecting to a wall of power tools. Next to the power tools, an archaic gas lantern illuminates a work bench. This is their garage, obviously, though she wonders briefly where the mechanics are.

With a groan, she hauls Stiles to his feet and starts towards the Jeep, keeping her head low.

“Come on,” She breathes into his ear. “We get the Jeep, we get out of here.”

Stiles clenches his jaw and nods, knocking into her in their effort to move fast while crouching low. He hisses, hand hovering above the star implanted in his skin, and Lydia knows it’s only a matter of time before the ramifications of his injury manifest fully.

“Lydia,” He grunts, and it almost scares her at how guttural it sounds. “Lydia, I—”

He’s cut off by a sudden flash of black. Oni, dozens of them, rise slowly from behind the parked vehicles. Once more, without even realizing, they’re surrounded. Lydia stopped fearing death a long time ago, when death seemed like the gentler option. But if she could feel something akin to terror, it would be now.

They are, in a word, _fucked_.

She broadens her stance and whips her head around.

Surrounded. All sides.

“Change of plans,” Lydia pants. “Molotov Cocktail.”

“Molotov—?” Stiles stutters, glancing panickingly at the audience of Oni.

“Cocktail,” Lydia finishes, darting to the nearby workbench. She grabs at the handle of the gas lantern and sprints back to Stiles, who looks like he’s currently choking on his own tongue.

“How can you possibly make an explosive cocktail without—?” He starts, but she cuts him off.

“Point to the nearest generator.”

He looks confused but quickly does so, and Lydia’s pleased to see it’s rumbling only twenty yards away.

Far. But close enough.

“How’s your aim?”

“I mean, I played lacrosse in high school—”

“Throw this at the generator,” She snaps, and pushes the handle of the lantern into his palm. He blinks at it once, breathes out through his nose, and meets her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am.”

And then he swings it high and hard. Breathlessly, they watch it arc over vehicles, whirling through the air, soaring across a onlooking crowd of Oni, until it lands perfectly, completely, smack-dab onto the generator and shatters into pieces.

There’s a heart-stopping pause, and then fire explodes as the makeshift bomb ignites.

Stiles and Lydia throw their bodies onto the floor, covering their head with their hands as shrapnel and the grinding of broken machinery rip through the air.

Lydia lifts her chin and watches triumphantly as at least half a dozen Oni retreat, twisting bodies engulfed in an unforgiving flame.

The heat of the fire scorches across Lydia’s back as she tentatively stands, bracing for the onslaught of the Oni.

Beside her, Stiles straightens up, gripping the neck of his bat with both hands. His knuckles are white, almost blinding under the florescent lights of the hangar.

“Lydia,” He whispers breathlessly. “Lydia, I can’t hold onto my bat.”

It’s true. She watches the jagged tips of his weapon tremble, fingers twitching and slipping on the grip of the handle. He tries to choke up on the bat, but there’s no traction. It lilts and whirls like a carnival ride, dangerously unsteady in his hands. Lydia knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, their time has run out.

“Give me your bat,” She says, voice strangely calm.

Stiles whips around, face incredulous.

“Give me your bat and run to the Jeep.”

“Lydia,” He starts, shaking his head, his eyes wide on hers. “Lydia, _no_. I can’t.”

“You can’t hold it. I can. Go for the Jeep, I’ll cover.”

He looks down at his shaking hands, reluctant to let go. She reaches out and covers his hands with hers, locking onto his eyes. He still hesitates, stubbornly refusing to let go. In front of them, the Oni slowly advance.

Lydia allows herself to scan his face, to commit this moment to memory. The glisten of sweat under his hairline, the dirt caked around the edges of his features, his too-bright eyes shining like starbursts directly on hers. She leans forward and kisses him, messy and quick, her breath crushing out of her. His fingers loosen. Pulling back, she grabs the bat from his grasp and begins walking towards the nearest Oni.

“Go. I’ve got this.”

She doesn’t look back. She doesn’t think she can.

An Oni lunges forward, drawing a sword from a sheath at its side. Lydia swings the bat in a heavy arc that the Oni meets with steel. The edge of the sword tangles in the maze of nails on the end and weakens his grip. Lydia takes advantage by butting the end of the bat up and into the Oni’s face, causing him to lurch backwards. Lydia jerks the bat to her right, the sword almost flailing out of the Oni’s grasp. The dark figure wavers once more, and Lydia brings the bat crashing down on the crown of his skull. He drops to his knees, sword falling into the sand. With a grunt, she kicks him in the face to pry the bat out of his crushed head and twists it up to her left to block the attack from another Oni.

This new Oni is more aggressive, pushing her backwards with violent whacks of a sword that leave gashes in the wood of the bat. She ducks his last surge, shooting her boot out to connect with his knee. He dips down and she pushes the bat forcefully up into the underside of his throat, sending a jet of blood spurting down his front. He drops his weapon, hands coming to cover the open wound, and the choking sound he makes is guttural and animalistic. She sweeps his feet out from under him before rolling backwards as another Oni comes at her. He swings a rough flail at his side, the chain wrapped up in his hand. Viciously, the Oni hurls the spiked weapon at her and Lydia rolls again to dodge it. She almost rolls too far and the residual heat from the bomb licks at her skin, even from a distance. She glances at it over her shoulder and then wearily at the Oni.

She has a chance with the Oni. No one has a chance with fire.

The Oni watches her approach like a predator watches prey. He snaps his weapon back, still swinging as he advances. Lydia circles, bat held at the ready as she waits for an opening. He launches the ball once more, the chain whipping around the end of the bat and jerking it clear out of Lydia’s hands. She jumps backwards, already reaching for her daggers. Cat and mouse. Rock and a hard place. Oni and fire.

There’s another eruption from nearby as a second generator explodes, sending shrapnel flying through the air. Pain rips across her thigh as the hot metal embeds itself in her flesh. With a cry, she drops to her knee.

The Oni begins to laugh.

His laughter is cut off when the Jeep roars to life and accelerates, crushing the Oni between the newly reinforced bumper and the side of  a truck. The passenger door swings open and Stiles leans over the seat.

“Get in!” He shouts.

Lydia grits her teeth and dashes forward, hot blood pouring down her leg as she grabs the bat from the sand and dives into the Jeep. Stiles reverses, slamming into two Oni advancing from behind, then shifts into gear and guns it for the door.

“Holy fucking shit!” He shouts, jerking the wheel right and left to dodge vehicles and crush Oni. Lydia can hear their bones crunch even over the roaring monstrosity of engines and the furious pounding of her own heart. “Holy fucking _shit_ , Lydia, that was amazing!”

Lydia grabs for any solid surface to hold onto as the car jerks and jolts over bodies, one hand bracing against the roof while the other grabs hold of the side of the driver's seat. The car gives a particularly nasty lurch and she looks over at Stiles.

He doesn’t look good.

His eyes dart violently back and forth, pupils fully dilated. His hands shake on the wheel and a ring of sweat stains the neck of his collar, but the worst is the sinister red spider veins slithering up his neck. He looks feverish, on the verge of delusion, and he’s currently driving a moving two-ton Jeep that's hurling around a maze of vehicles and bloodthirsty Oni.

“Stiles!” Lydia shrieks as his hands slip off the wheel and he slumps forward. He’s still staring determinedly forward, his teeth grit together so hard she’s sure they’ll crack. The Jeep drifts to the left, towards a wall of power tools, and Lydia reaches out to jerk the wheel the opposite direction. She jerks too far, the passenger door scraping violently against the shack door as they pass.

“Brakes, Stiles!” Lydia shouts as she tries to steer, but he lolls sideways, hands reaching blindly towards the steering column as his head whacks his window. The Jeep stutters as his foot slips off the gas, his other foot kicking towards the clutch and not making it. The Jeep slows, then stalls, the headlights illuminating the dozens of Oni waiting for them in the street.

“Stiles!” She cries out, and her hands fly across his chest, his face, the wheel. Panic strikes like ice through her heart, freezing and quick.

Lydia wildly looks around the Jeep for something, _anything_.

“Lydia,” Stiles says softly. Lydia turns to him, sees the defeated look in his half-lidded eyes. “I can’t make it.”

Lydia stills, looking forward at the wall of bodies blocking their path out, then behind to the raging fire consuming the garage. She could make it out alone, probably. Just open the door and run into the night and never look back. But her leg is throbbing and she can see the sharp edges of the protruding metal shining with her blood. If she ran, she probably wouldn’t make it far, but it would be a shot. It could mean survival.

Stiles curls his trembling hand around hers.

She knows she can’t.

“I’m sorry,” He whispers, taking in shuddering breaths. “Please, run.”

Lydia shakes her head wildly.

“No, no. We’re going to get out of this, just give me a second.”

“ _Please_ , Lydia!”

“I’m not leaving you!” She snaps. “We’re not dying here, Stiles.”

He slumps against the door, all strength leaving him. He’s too pale, the poison working through his veins taking everything from him.

“I wish I’d met you before this,” He says.

Lydia keeps her eyes trained on the Oni. It hurts too much to look anywhere else. She’d rather watch death than see the vulnerability in his expression as he spills the naked truth. But her vision swims anyway.

“I wish we could have met at a party. Wish I could have texted you, way too late on a Friday night. Maybe we’d go see a movie for our first date. Maybe I’d pick you up in this Jeep. I bet you’d look so beautiful. You always look so beautiful.”

“Would you have taken me to your lacrosse games?” Lydia asks, swallowing the lump in her throat. The Oni are drifting towards them slowly, toying with their prey.

“ _No_ ,” Stiles laughs, sounding far away. “I wasn’t that good…but Scott needed me...”

Lydia spares a look towards him, a knife twisting in her heart. His eyes are ringed in red and his whole body is convulsing. He’s not going to last much longer like this. He starts to shake his head.

“I need—I need to get Scott—I need—”

He tries to climb forward, towards the gap between the seats, and Lydia tears her eyes away from the advancing Oni to put her hands on Stiles’s shoulders and push him backwards.

“You need to stop moving, Stiles, okay? I’m going to get us out of this, but you need to stop moving and stay with me.”

Stiles nods dreamily.

“What’s your name, Lydia?” He asks, his eyebrows creasing. “No, I mean, your last name?”

Lydia blinks.

“Martin,” She finally replies. “Lydia Martin.”

Stiles nods again. He can’t get his head to stop nodding.

“Lydia Martin,” He repeats. “I’m Stiles Stilinski. It’s nice to meet you.”

The Oni have reached the front bumper of the Jeep. One drags a gloved hand up the curve of the headlight. She grabs the handle of the bat and holds on tight, bracing herself for combat.

Time’s up.

Suddenly, a red flash streaks through the night and hits the closest Oni directly in the chest, sending him falling backwards in surprise. There’s a moment, then a small blast cracks the sand. Another one, this time blue, whirs through the air and momentarily illuminates the bodies lined up in front of them before detonating in mid-air, next to the ear of an Oni who stumbles sideways. They’re _bottle rockets_ , Lydia realizes. But who—?

There’s a high-pitches series of whistles and a burst of a hundred colorful explosions abruptly fills the space around the Jeep. The crowd of Oni sink backwards, startled by the fireworks firing around them. The air rapidly fills with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. Soon, Lydia can’t see anything beyond a three-foot radius. She keeps her hand on the bat, eyes scanning the windows for any signs of attackers. Beside her, Stiles sinks deeper against the door, his head still nodding.

An Oni is thrown against the passenger window, blood seeping out of wound across its chest. Lydia jumps with a yelp as he sprays red across the glass before sliding beneath the car. Lydia can make out a figure just behind it, small in stature and wearing all black. She squints, trying to discern any specific features, but finds she can’t through the smog and the smear of violent crimson.

The driver side door opens and Lydia whips her head around in time to see Stiles being pulled out by someone dressed in what looks like furs.

“No!” She screams, scrambling forward to get to him. She’s stopped when her own door opens and she feels someone’s arms wrap around her shoulders. She throws her elbow back like Allison taught her, but a wet cloth is pushed against her nose and her world starts to turn.

“Sorry,” A voice says near her ear.

And then her world fades to black.

* * *

Lydia comes back into consciousness slowly, like breaking the surface of a lake. There’s a pounding in her head that doesn’t fit in with the peace she’s feeling as the world glimmers back to life. The room around her is warm and dim, the walls carved from stone. There’s a single moment of contentment that has her fluttering her eyes shut, ready to return to sleep once more.

And then she remembers.

The fire. The fight.

_Stiles_.

With a jolt, she sits up and feels a dull pain blossom across her leg. Looking down, she sees the stark white of bandages wrapped tightly around her thigh, speckled through with red.

“You should rest,” Someone says from beside her.

Lydia spins her head around, hiding her wince. A girl stands in a rough archway, dressed all in black. The bottom of her face is obscured by a bandana bearing the snout of a fox. A shock of electric blue hair frames her face.  

“Where is he?” Lydia asks, her voice hoarse. How long has she been out?

“We’re taking care of your friend,” The girl replies. “You, too. You need to sleep, get your strength up.”

Lydia huffs and makes to stand. The girl rushes forward and takes her by the arms.

“Stop! You’re going to open your wound again!”

“Let go of me!” Lydia growls, struggling against the girl’s grip. “I want to see him!”

“He’s _resting_!” The girl says, wrestling Lydia back onto the cot she’s been placed on. “He was poisoned by the Oni! We’re trying to _help_!”

“Why should I believe you?!”

“Because humanity didn’t die with the plague!”

Lydia stops fighting. Both girls pant heavily, glaring at each other. But then her hands slide down Lydia’s shoulders. Lydia slouches, hands dropping to the rough blankets beneath her.

“Who are you?” Lydia asks.

“I’m Kira,” The girl replies. “We’re the Skinwalkers.”

Lydia scrunches her brow.

“I’ve never heard of you before. Are you a gang?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you good?”

“...Something like that.”

“Are you—?”

“We just really hate the Oni.”

Lydia tries not to let her face twist into a grin, and by the crinkle at the corners the girl’s brown eyes, she figures the same is happening beneath her bandana.

“I still don’t trust you.”

“That’s okay. You should still rest.”

The girl, Kira, gets up to leave Lydia alone with her thoughts.

“Wait,” Lydia calls out. “The man. His name is Stiles. Is he going to make it?”

Kira pauses in the doorway and cocks her head. The glitter of her eyes in the soft light and her mannerisms resemble something coyly animalistic.

“Are any of us going to make it?” She riddles.

Lydia braces herself for impact.

“Yeah,” Kira answers, and now Lydia can tell she’s smiling. “He’s okay. He’s gonna make it.”

It isn’t until Kira leaves the room that Lydia considers why she even braced herself at all. Stiles Stilinski is a car crash. She wonders if the pain is worth the impact.

She should have left him at the water tower and never looked back.   
  
She should have run.

* * *

They move him into her room.

She assumes it’s because he’s getting better now, just like the way hospital patients used to get moved to healthier wards during recovery back when there were hospitals and people getting healthier.

She supposes she should be glad. In a way she is. Then again, watching him now, breathing deeply in the bed next to her...she isn’t.

Lydia fights it at first. She grits her teeth and balls her fists, but eventually succumbs to temptation and stares at him. And then the hard part suddenly becomes _not_ staring. She’s incapable of tearing her eyes away.

She only knows his name and the way his eyes look in the glow of a red sun. And the way he sticks his hands almost directly into the flames of a fire to readjust the structure of the logs. And the way he always gives her the bigger piece of whatever food they’re splitting that day. And how his t-shirt always bunches up at the bottom when he crosses his arms, exactly the way it did on their first night together when she trailed her fingers across his skin.

Beside her, Stiles shifts and sighs. His brown hair flops across his forehead, still slick with sweat. His color is better than the last time she saw him.

Lydia should be happy to see him. Should be. _Should be_.

She crosses her arms and flares her nostrils and stares until her eyes burn.

* * *

They aren’t allowed to leave their room for days.

Stiles wakes up on the fourth day, sitting up so suddenly that he almost topples from the cot. He snaps his head towards Lydia, his expression softening as he sees her upright.

“Are you okay?” He coughs, his voice rough.

“I’m fine,” Lydia responds.

Stiles looks down at his chest, pulling down the neck of his shirt to reveal the square of thick gauze placed just over his heart.

“Am _I_ okay?”

Lydia can’t help but smile.

“Yeah, you’re fine. You were stabbed and poisoned and in a minor car accident, but you’re fine now.”

Stiles’s eyes widen.

“Is _my_ _Jeep_ okay?”

Lydia shrugs.

“Suppose we’ll have to ask Kira.”

“Who’s—?”

As if summoned, Kira walks through the doorway with two cups of water in her hands.

“You’re both up!” She exclaims.

Lydia gestures between the two of them.

“Kira, Stiles. Stiles, Kira.”

“Hi,” They both say simultaneously.

The three sit in awkward silence.

“Thanks for healing us and all,” Stiles finally says. “But we’re ready to bounce, so…”

Not the way Lydia would have phrased it, but the sentiment remains.

Kira shifts her weight from one foot to another.

“You’re both sure you’re alright?”

Stiles and Lydia look at the other in silent conference before both nodding.

“Well then,” Kira says, striding forward to set the water down between them. “Your Jeep should be ready to go. We had someone take a look at it to fix up what we could. It’s right outside the door. Oh, and we have an underground hot spring. You might be interested in that as infections are at an all time high, and with heat breeding bacteria—”

“Kira,” Stiles says, cutting her off. “I heard the words, 'hot spring'. I’m in.”

Kira nods, her eyes crinkling above her bandana.

“Then follow me.”

* * *

The Skinwalkers live in an underground cave system. By the looks of it, they’ve been here even before the Sickness. Or ‘plague,’ as Kira called it. There seem to be miles of paths cut into the stone, divided into housing and common areas. The Skinwalkers themselves seem more ghost than human. They are hardly ever seen and, with the exception of Kira, never heard. As Stiles and Lydia follow behind her down a candlelit tunnel, they don’t see another soul.

They finally reach a doorway with a long rectangle of burlap thrown over the entrance. Steam billows softly from around the edges. Kira throws back the fabric, sending a plume of sweet heat shooting down the hallway, and ushers Stiles and Lydia inside.

They step into a humongous cavern with a shallow pool of delectably hot water spanning the length of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Lydia’s body aches just looking at it.

“Towels and soap are over here,” Kira says, pointing to a neat stack of toiletries next to the entrance. “I’ll grab your bags and put them right outside. Follow the hallway down when you’re done and I’ll meet you there.”

She disappears wordlessly, leaving Stiles and Lydia alone.

They stand in silence, taking in the sight of the hot spring. The humidity in the air settles thick over Lydia’s skin. She takes in a deep breath.

Stiles moves first, taking a handful of soap, shampoo, and conditioner to set next to the edge of the water. He straightens up next to Lydia and she rotates around to face him. It’s the lush humidity, she decides, that makes her look at Stiles languidly.

She watches the twist of his abdomen underneath the filthy white of his t-shirt and the way his hands trail up against his jeans as he stands fully. She studies the lines of his body, the twitch of his fingertips, the bob of his Adam’s apple, the smirk of his soft lips. All the way up to his eyes, which hold steady onto hers as he lets her take him in, inch by inch.

It’s his eyes that do her in. She steps forward and places her palms onto the center of his chest, directly over the gauze of his bandages. She looks up at him, so close in this vast expanse of space, and feels something inside of her give way. She turns her head to stop the rushing in her ears and focuses on sliding her hands down to the hem of his shirt and slipping them under the cotton. Stiles takes in a breath and holds it as her nails scrape against the sensitive skin of his stomach. She curls her fingers around the fabric and slowly pulls.

He raises his arms as the fabric slides over his skin, allowing Lydia to gently slip it over his head before she discards it. He focuses his gaze down on her, fixating on the way her hands touch him, and it’s so intense she almost feels shy. But her fingers are brave, and they work through the pounding of her heart as they undo the button of his jeans and hook underneath his briefs, pulling them both down in one sure movement. He steps out of them and stands before her, bare and raw and reeling. She reaches forward and gently peels off his bloodied bandages, exposing the angry red gash of his wound. Lydia watches the rapid rise and fall of his chest in time with hers, staring openly at his nakedness.

He lets her for a long time, eventually reaching a hand out to trail his fingers gently over her cheekbone. She lifts her eyes to his. He steps forward and she raises her arms dutifully above her head as he strips her own shirt off her body and throws it next to his own. He leans forward to unhook her bra, his arms wrapping around her ribs and his warm breath against her cheek, before pulling back and taking the bra with him. He unbuttons her jeans and pulls them down with her underwear, carefully avoiding the strip of bandages still ringing her thigh. Finally, he undoes the gauze, unwinding it until the pink wound is finally left bare. He stands and looks at her, slowly, reverently, awe struck. And it’s too much. It hurts to look at him.

But she allows herself this moment of weakness.

Just this once.

Together, they make their way to the water’s surface and they both gasp when the hot spring hits their feverish skin. Lydia takes a single inhale and then sinks under the water, letting the world stop as she holds her breath.

When she comes back up, Stiles is just breaking the surface, pushing his wet bangs off of his forehead. His cheeks are ruddy from the warmth, but there is a weariness in the lines of his face that Lydia impulsively wishes she could smooth out. He sees something in her expression and swims over to her, softly wrapping his arms around her waist. She links her arms over his shoulders and twists her legs around his torso. He holds them together and spins slowly, pressing his nose against her temple. She places a wet cheek against his shoulder and watches the cavern rotate in a dreamlike circle. She could close her eyes now, she thinks, and it would be okay if they didn’t open again. She lets her eyelids droop, lets her body relax in the heat of the cavern.

Stiles tenderly runs a washcloth down Lydia’s spine. She cleans his wound, pressing her mouth to his collarbone. They scrub each other clean slowly, gently, for a small eternity in the space of an hour.

It feels good, to be clean and taken care of and comforted. Lydia had forgotten that soft moments like this could exist in a world so full of sickness and pain. There’s no comfort in the apocalypse.

* * *

“The main road is fifteen miles southeast,” Kira calls out as they climb into the Jeep, pointing out the jagged entrance to the cave. “And sorry we couldn’t get rid of the paint.”

Stiles frowns in the direction of the single dot of yellow on the passenger door.

“I’ll live,” He says.

“Yeah,” Kira smiles. “You will.”

Lydia closes the door and leans out the open window.

“Why do you do this?” Lydia asks. “Why did you help us?”

Kira hesitates, then pulls down the fox-face fabric of her bandana. A jagged scar tilts up from just underneath her bottom lip, running in an angry line almost to her ear.

“Someone has to fix what’s broken,” She says. “We take care of what the Oni leave behind.”

Lydia smiles at her and she smiles back.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Kira says. Stiles starts the Jeep and it comes to life with an echoing roar. “And take care of each other.”

“Maybe we’ll see each other again,” Lydia says.

“I have a feeling we will,” Kira says serenely. “I’ve got an entire lifetime ahead of me.”

* * *

Lydia waits until the caves of the Skinwalkers are out of sight before reaching under the seat and pulling out the HAM radio.

Stiles spares a curious glance, but dutifully keeps his eyes on the dusty, dirt road. She’s thankful for that. She’s thankful for a lot of things.

“Hey Silver,” She greets into the crackling, endless airwaves. “We had a slight delay, but we made it. We’re on our way. We’ll find you. See you soon. Banshee, out.”

**Author's Note:**

> readymachine.tumblr.com  
> redstringbanshee.tumblr.com


End file.
